What is Trump’s beef in South Africa? – Boise State Public Radio

Johannesburg, South Africa – this week President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump appointed by billionaire Elon Musk attacked South Africa in a storm of social media publications.

The South African government, which consists of a coalition of different political parties, reacts firmly but diplomatically. President Cyril Ramafosa said the country “would not be harassed”.

By Friday, the White House has issued an enforcement order to reduce the financial assistance of South Africa, citing the country’s recent change in the land policy and to bring a genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

The White House added that it would make plans to “encourage the resettlement of African refugees who fled the government -sponsored discrimination based on race.” Africa are mainly the white descendants of mostly Dutch colonists.

So why does the new US administration accept pots into one of the most developed democracies in Africa and what are the facts behind the accusations?

How did this start?

On Sunday, President Trump published onwards True social., “South Africa confiscates land and treats very badly with certain classes of people.” He continued: “I will reduce all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation into this situation is completed!”

He followed this post with comments to reporters later during the day. “Terrible things are happening in South Africa,” he said. The manual is “the land withdrawal, they confiscate land and in fact do things that are perhaps much more in this way.”

By Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio published on X, “I will not attend the summit of the G -20 in Johannesburg. South Africa does many bad things. Alienating private property.”

South Africa is the first country of the continent to conduct a rotating leadership for the 20 -largest group of the world’s worldwide economies to meet in Johannesburg in late February.

The third Salvo fired against South Africa came from one of his own: Musk, who was born and raised in Apartheid South Africa.

Musk redirects Trump and Rubio’s comments about his birth country and added his own, responding to the state of Ramafosa’s X, saying, “Why do you have an open racist ownership laws?”

What is Trump?

The publication of Trump’s social media and the comments referred to the South Africa Earth Alienation Act, adopted in January, which aims to cope with the heritage of colonialism and apartheid.

While Trump did not specify which “classes of people” had been abused in South Africa, he was understood to speak of the country’s white minority.

The law is contradictory in South Africa as it allows the land to be alienated without compensation in some rare circumstances, including if the land is not used in what the law calls a “productive way”.

However, the law does not allow the land to be seized arbitrarily and there must be an agreement with the owner. All alienations on Earth will still have to pass through the independent courts of South Africa.

Ramafosa issued a statement Trump’s refusal: “South Africa is a constitutional democracy that is rooted deep in the rule of law, justice and equality. The South African government has not confiscated any land.”

He also stated that Trump’s threat to reducing funding matters a little, saying: “With the exception of Pepfar’s assistance, which represents 17% of the HIV/AIDS program in South Africa, there is no other funding that was obtained from South Africa from the united country countries. ”

And with Trump’s recent freezing for almost all foreign assistance, it is no longer clear whether Pepfar – the President’s emergency plan for AIDS relief – probably will survive anyway.

What is the debate on Earth’s reform in South Africa?

Many black South Africans are disappointed with how long -land reform It is taken from the end of Apartheid in 1994. According to government statistics, the bigger part of the private agricultural lands in South Africa – about 72% – is still owned by the white minority of the country, which represents about 7% of the population.

“The conversation about land reform in South Africa dates back to 1994 and the dawn of democracy,” says Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist of the South Africa Agricultural Business Chamber, in front of the NPR.

“The ownership of the land at the time was massively distorted, for example, if you consider agricultural land in South Africa, it occupied about 86 million hectares from South Africa, South Africa is a country of about 122 million hectares. Of this, the majority is owned by white farmers And you quickly ahead, the numbers have not changed so much.

However, he said: “The idea that the land reform policy in South Africa has changed and now there is a graduation of land is not true, there is strong property rights in the country.”

Right -wing South African groups, such as AfraphorumWho aims to protect African’s rights, lobby Washington on white minority issues. As well as concerns about Earth’s reform, they claim that white South African farmers are particularly focused on murder, but statistics show far from the largest victims of violence in South Africa are poor black people.

The homicides of the farm and a myth for the “white genocide”, which is being held, for which Fox News held segments and Musk also made public statements, caught Trump’s attention in his first term of office. He published on Twitter in 2018 that he has “large -scale homicides of farmers”, citing the rapid defense of the South Africa government.

Schalk Van Zuydam / AP

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AP

What is the reaction in South Africa?

Following the attack on Twitter by the most rich man in the world, Ramafosa called Musk directly. He said he had talked to him about “Problems with misinformation and distortions for South Africa. “Ramafosa speaker Magvenya Also responded to Musk’s publication, saying, “My brother, you will know that because of the devastating heritage of centuries of depressing and brutal colonialism and apartheid, our constitution provides for compensation of diseases of the past.”

Trump’s post also helped to gather the South Africans.

The Democratic Alliance, the second largest party in the government after the African National Ramafosa National Congress, was against the alienation bill for a number It requires fair compensation for legal alienation. ”

As for Rubio’s message that he does not appear in the G20, China also quickly responds to the background of the growing geopolitical rivalry between global superpowers in Africa-rich resources. The Chinese ambassador to South Africa published on X that his country was looking forward to the meeting at the summit of the G -20, hosted by their colleague Bricks.

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